“No one wants to date me mister…” she said on a blind date—Then the single dad’s reaction changed…
The Vulnerable Truth at Riverside Bistro
“No one wants to date me, mister,” she said on a blind date. Then, the single dad’s reaction changed everything. Before we continue, please tell us: where in the world are you tuning in from? We love seeing how far our stories travel.
Caleb Morrison sat in a corner booth at Riverside Beastro in downtown Portland on March the 15th at 6:30 in the evening. He was nervously shredding his paper napkin into tiny pieces while trying to remember the last time he’d been on an actual date.
The answer was approximately three years and two months ago with his wife, Jenna, before she died in a car accident that turned his entire world upside down.
His sister, Brooke, had set this whole thing up with some nurse who worked at the same hospital as her friend. She’d spent two weeks basically harassing him with texts.
“You need to move on Caleb ava needs to see you happy just one date and if it’s terrible you never have to do it again.”
He finally caved just to get her off his back. The thing about being a widower at 36 years old with a six-year-old daughter who has severe facial burn scars is that dating feels impossible, selfish, and terrifying.
How do you explain to a stranger that your kid accidentally pulled a pot of boiling water off the stove two years ago? She spent four months in the hospital getting skin graphs and surgeries.
She still has 17 more procedures to go. She comes home from first grade crying because kids call her a monster. Caleb checked his phone for the fifth time in 10 minutes.
He saw a text from Ava’s babysitter.
“She’s fine stop worrying go have fun”
He tried to remember what fun even felt like anymore when most of his life was construction sites, hospital waiting rooms, and parent-teacher conferences where he had to advocate for his daughter’s right to not be bullied.
He was about to text Brooke and make up some excuse about a work emergency when a woman walked through the restaurant doors looking absolutely panicked. She was scanning the room clearly searching for someone.
Caleb recognized her from the photo his sister had shown him. She was wearing a long-sleeve burgundy blouse even though it was a relatively warm March evening. The collar came up high on her neck.
Her dark blonde hair was down covering the sides of her face. She looked like she was preparing for battle instead of a casual dinner date. Laura spotted him and took a visible deep breath.
It was like she was gathering every ounce of courage she had. She walked over to his booth with her hands twisting together in front of her. Caleb stood up because his mama had raised him right and stuck out his hand to shake hers.
When their hands connected, he felt her fingers trembling. As she pulled back, her sleeve rode up just a couple of inches. Caleb saw the edge of what looked like burn scarring on her wrist and forearm.
It was the kind of textured, discolored skin he’d become intimately familiar with over the past two years sitting in hospital rooms with Ava. His eyes flicked up to her neck where the collar didn’t quite cover everything.
He saw more scarring there. Laura caught him looking and her entire face just crumpled. She sat down in the booth across from him like all the air had gone out of her body.
They sat in awkward silence for about 30 seconds while Laura picked up the menu and then set it back down without looking at it. Her hands were shaking so badly Caleb could see the menu vibrating.
She looked directly at him and spoke in a quiet but firm voice.
“I need to say something before we waste each other’s time here.”
Caleb said, “Okay.”
Laura reached down and deliberately pushed her left sleeve all the way up to her elbow. The scarring was extensive, thick, and textured, clearly from burns. It covered her entire forearm and disappeared up under the fabric.
She turned her head to the side and pulled her hair back, showing that the scarring continued on her neck.
“Eight years ago I was in a house fire that killed both my parents these scars cover my left shoulder and arm and neck and parts of my back i’ve had multiple surgeries and I’ll have more and I need you to know that I’ve been on exactly two dates since this happened and both men were perfectly polite during dinner but I never heard from either of them again.”
Her voice cracked on the last few words. She was looking down at the table instead of at him.
“No one wants to date me Mr morrison so if you want to leave right now or make up an excuse about a family emergency or something I completely understand and I won’t be offended i just thought it was better to be upfront about it so we don’t waste time pretending.”
The way she said “Mr. Morrison” was so formal and defensive. It was like she was putting up a wall between them before he could reject her first. Caleb felt his heart absolutely shatter for this woman sitting across from him.
She was so used to being turned away that she’d started doing it to herself.
